Mysteries, uncertainties & Doubt.

As I go to write this blog post I notice a new feature offered by my website provider...AI blog posts. Simply type in any prompt and bang, a few paragraphs for you to post and call your own.

As with AI music, we now have the option to bypass the creating stage and go directly to the end product. But to take this route is to reduce the act of creation to merely a means to an end. Something time-consuming and unnecessary that we can now conveniently bypass.

To me this approach reveals a greater cultural malaise that I find myself encountering most days in my teaching: The idea that the point of making music is always to 'produce' an end product.

To be a musician is to endlessly toil away in order to produce an end product to be consumed by others at some point. Most musicians take this approach to some degree or another, usually as a consequence of traditional music education which teaches us the 'right' way to play.

The act of creation turns into the act of mimicry and always with the promise of some future reward.

As I write these words I'm jumping into the unknown a little. Improvising one sentence after another. It's a little unsafe and scary but the process of printing out my thoughts gives me a clearer perspective but perhaps more importantly makes me feel alive.

John Keats once spoke about the term 'Negative Capability': "The ability to remain within Mysteries, Uncertainties & Doubt without the irritable reaching after fact and reason". This seems not only an excellent definition of what it means to play music expressively and authentically but of what it means to truly embrace life.

To embrace this life-giving uncertainty and allow ourselves to fully reside in it is one of the greatest opportunities music offers us in each and every moment. But we must let go of all the 'end result' conditioning and experience ourselves through our playing right now, regardless of 'technical ability' or any other inhibiting cultural norms.